


At the Ballet

by Corinna



Category: Glee
Genre: Ballet, Fluff, Future Fic, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-17
Updated: 2013-12-17
Packaged: 2018-01-04 23:59:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1087167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corinna/pseuds/Corinna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Her first dance recital; let's enjoy it."  Pure parenting fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At the Ballet

**Author's Note:**

> [Originally posted to Tumblr](http://chiasmuslovesme.tumblr.com/post/54428009666/ficlet-at-the-ballet) in July 2013.

Kurt Hummel has been to hundreds of opening nights, including more than a few of his own. He’s sat in the audience spellbound and rapturous, and he’s sat there agape, unable to believe how bad the play unspooling in front of him really is. He’s been to cabaret nights and quiet Lower East Side singer-songwriter shows and rock concerts at the Garden. He doesn’t think he has ever been so excited and nervous about a performance, his own or anyone else’s, as he is now.

“She has her juice box and her snack,” he says, as much for the comfort of reminding himself as anything else. “We went over it, and Miss Caroline knows where they are too.”

“She’s fine, Kurt,” Blaine shifts the plastic-wrapped flowers on his lap. “She’ll be fine. Her first dance recital; let’s enjoy it.”

“It’s not fair they make them stay the whole time. Two hours! She’s going to have a complete meltdown before the finale.”

“Sophie is not the first four year-old student they’ve had,” Blaine reminds him.

“Three year-old,” Kurt insists. They have another eight weeks before he has to start saying she’s four. He’s not ready.

“They know what they’re doing. And she’ll be fine. All that practicing!”

Sophia Hummel knew the word _rehearsal_ before she even turned two: it was something her dads did, a grownup thing that meant one or the other or both weren’t home for bedtime. So now that it was her turn to rehearse, she embraced it wholeheartedly. To be fair, so had her parents. They’d turned it into a family event, Papa at the piano, Daddy singing _“Do, a deer, a female deer_ _,”_ in the original key, and both of them applauding madly when Sophie made her way through the simple series of plies and turns. If Kurt and half of the cast of his current show found themselves humming _Re, a drop of golden sun_ at random, inappropriate moments, it was a small price to pay.

“Her first recital,” Kurt finally sighs. “You’ve got enough battery to record this, right?”

\- - - - -

The Greenpoint Dance Academy’s recital this year has a Broadway theme; almost all of the classes are dancing to songs from great musicals. Kurt approves, even if he’d quibble with some of the recordings they’ve chosen and finds the choreography uninspired at best. He’s still powerless before the adorableness of grade-school girls tap-dancing to an Irving Berlin song. He looks for the boys — some New York equivalent of his own experience — but he hasn’t seen one yet, not in the first three groups of performers and not when he takes Sophie to class every Monday. She could probably use some part of her life that’s marked off as girls only, he knows, but he’d still like to find that boy and tell him to keep practicing.

First-Year Ballet is fourth on the program, and he clutches Blaine’s arm as they come out, their teacher Miss Caroline leading the way. Sophie is so beautiful. Her hair has miraculously stayed in the bun he’d made over an hour ago, with just a few dark ringlets escaping at the edges, and even the stage makeup the school insists on is more restrained than he’d feared. They’re all in matching yellow tutus with yellow fabric flowers in their hair, and the whole audience coos when they come out. Sophie’s looking up at Miss Caroline intently: Kurt would never interfere with her performance by waving or distracting her, but he hopes she can feel him, somehow, up in the fifth row, sending his love and encouragement. In the next seat, Blaine sniffles quietly.

Miss Caroline gets the girls lined up on their taped mark — it’s a little like herding ducklings — and heads back into the wings. _Show smile, Soph,_ Kurt thinks at her. Blaine starts the video recorder on his phone, and the music begins.

They all lift their arms together into fifth position as Julie Andrews sings _Do, a deer_ , but that’s the last time they are in sync. Even with Miss Caroline in the wings, demonstrating the dance for them as they go, half the girls are completely off-script within a few bars. Sophie’s friend Maisie can’t even manage the first twirl — she trips on her own feet and is down, blinking and astonished, on the floor. A little Asian girl at the end of the line is singing along with the recording, bouncing up and down. Sophie is among the group doing something like the choreography they practiced, but even she’s getting thrown by the audience, and she completely misses the first little jump.

What started out as cooing and sighing around them has turned into stifled giggles and actual laughter. Kurt is horrified. What sort of place is this, what sort of people is Sophie meeting at this school, that their parents would laugh at a group of little ballerinas? She’s going to be traumatized for life. Maybe she’ll never want to perform again. He is devastated on her behalf.

 _That will bring us back to do, do, do, do_ , Julie Andrews sings, and the girls are supposed to join hands and walk in a circle. They actually manage this, mostly, and spin together in a misshapen oval as the song begins to repeat. Somewhere behind Kurt, applause breaks out, and soon most of the audience is clapping.

“They are adorable!” a woman in the row below them whispers to her husband, and the two of them start giggling again.

Kurt realizes with a rush of relief that nobody’s laughing at his daughter — or at least not in a mean way. They’re laughing with the sweetness of it: the sight of these tiny little girls with their tutus and ballet shoes and earnest confused faces. The audience is delighted by them. They are a hit, missed choreography and all.

As the song ends, the girls line back up on their mark, mostly. The little girl who’d been singing wanders off to the wings and has to be shooed back on stage. When the music turns off, the crowd begins to applaud, louder and more enthusiastic than they were for any of the previous groups. Blaine hoots his approval, and Kurt leans against his husband’s shoulder as he applauds as hard as he can.

On stage, the girls have started smiling too. Some of them are staring into the crowd, looking for their parents; others do the little curtsy Miss Caroline made them practice. Sophie puts one foot behind her, and does a deep diva bow, her arms spread wide. For the first time, Kurt has to laugh.

“Amazing,” Blaine says. “Amazing. Who taught her that?”

Kurt shakes his head. “Either Rachel, or Tina, or it’s genetic. Even odds.”

On stage, Sophie bows again. Her hands scrape the floor.

“Amazing,” Blaine says again, and they’re leaning against each other, laughing, helpless with joy.


End file.
